A Vote of "No Confidence"

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The Voter Confidence Act passed by the Tennessee General Assembly in
2008 is a creation of "the liberal wing of the liberal party" and a
"bad idea," according to Bill Giannini, the chairman of the
Shelby County Election Commission.

In particular, said Giannini in the course of remarks Monday night
to members of the Southeast Shelby Republican Club at Perkins
Restaurant on Germantown Parkway, It would be insanity to go back to
paper ballots." As Giannini noted, the law mandates statewide voting in
2010 by optical scanning machines — a process in which paper
ballots are read and tabulated electronically, with the originals
maintained for possible recount purposes as a "paper trail."

The paper costs by themselves would be "astronomical," said
Giannini, who argued further that to carry out the mandate next year
requires state-of-the-art optical-scanning devices certified by both
the state and federal governments and that "no such animal" exists.

Giannini, a former chairman of the Shelby County Republican Party,
thus concurred with arguments made by state Election Coordinator
Mark Goins and by Secretary of State Tre Hargett. Both
are Republicans who ascended to their offices as a consequence of
Republican victories in 2008 legislative races that gave the GOP a
majority in both houses of the legislature.

The Voter Confidence Act has been stoutly defended by leading
Democrats, including state House Majority Leader Gary Odom of
Nashville and state Democratic Party chairman Chip Forrester,
who maintain that Republicans are using sham arguments — having
to do with costs and the rigidity of the Act's standards for voting
machines — to delay implementation of the act.

Spokespersons for the two parties continue to debate these points,
with the Democrats maintaining that federal funds have been made
available for the statewide change-over under the federal Help America
Vote Act (HAVA) and that machinery meeting the standards set forth by
the act is available.

Giannini contended that even the Democratic members of the local
Election Commission agreed that to try to implement the act next year
would be impractical. As the law stands, Shelby County has "no choice
but to comply," Giannini said, but it is clear that, both locally and
statewide, the issue remains in doubt as to whether next year's
elections will be held in accordance with the act.

Meanwhile, the electronic voting machines now in use in Shelby
County are acceptably accurate, argued Giannini, who maintained that to
rig a vote with them would necessitate "a conspiracy of unbelievable
magnitude."

Another immediate concern of the local commission is to update voter
rolls, which still contain the names of numerous deceased people,
according to Giannini. He said there might be "forty or fifty thousand
names" that shouldn't be on the rolls for one reason or another.

Yet another priority is to create at least two new early voting
sites in eastern Shelby County, Giannini said. He maintained that the
current pattern of 12 "Democratic" sites and six "Republican" sites is
inequitable.

Giannini also advocated stricter voter ID measures to prevent fraud
and called for Republican pollworkers to volunteer for deployment at
inner-city precinct locations. He was optimistic that instant runoff
voting, approved in a countywide referendum last year, could streamline
elections and curtail expenses but said implementing such voting would
not be feasible by next year.

On the big issue of the day, whether and when there will be a
special election to succeed Mayor Willie Herenton, Giannini
acknowledged that Herenton had apparently informed media people on
Monday that he'd be leaving the office on July 30th, but there was
still a hitch.

"We can't do a thing until we get certification from the City
Council of the minutes of their last meeting," he said. Giannini
referred to the meeting two weeks ago at which the council officially
declared a mayoral vacancy as of July 31st. An effort to pass a
"same-night minutes" resolution failed by one vote, however, and, as
the Election Commission head said at the time, "that ties our
hands."

Pending City Council approval this week of the minutes from that
previous meeting, the Election Commission is scheduled to meet on
Thursday to consider establishing a special-election date.

• The question of a mayoral election, and what to do about it,
was one of the matters taken up last Thursday night at a meeting of the
Shelby County Democratic executive committee, which briefly considered
the question of endorsing a candidate. Several formats for doing so
were reviewed, including a straw poll, a forum, and an endorsement
convention as such, but the matter was tabled without a conclusion
being reached.

The meeting, held at the IBEW Union Hall on Madison Avenue, was
attended by peripatetic state Democratic chairman Chip Forrester of
Nashville, who has been much on the road of late, meeting with local
party groups statewide. Forrester addressed the assembled Democrats on
his hopes for recovering Democratic control of the Tennessee
legislature in 2010.

The chairman vowed to "field a candidate against every Republican in
the state" next year and to employ to that end "tools from the Obama
playbook," including various kinds of social networking used in
President Obama's successful 2008 election campaign.

Forrester said the priorities of the 2010 legislative campaign would
conform to a "two-tier" strategy devised by himself and Mike
Turner, caucus chairman of the House Democrats.

After suffering a period of estrangement from Governor Phil
Bredesen immediately following his upset chairmanship victory in
January over a candidate supported by the governor, Forrester has since
made peace with Bredesen. He told the Shelby County Democrats that
Bredesen and former 9th District congressman Harold Ford would
co-chair the state Democrats' forthcoming Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner
in Nashville on August 29th, with a keynote speaker to be announced
later.

The chairman made a brief appearance on Friday at a press conference
at Quetzal restaurant on Union and called to push for implementation of
a national health-care plan timed to coincide with simultaneous "tea
party" meetings held locally by conservative opponents of federally
administered health-care plans.

Appearing with Forrester at the press conference were lawyer
Sheree Hoffman, a breast cancer survivor, and Art
Sutherland, retired founder of the Sutherland Heart Clinic and
member of Physicians for a National Health Program, a national group
endorsing single payer health reform.

• Who'd-a-thunk-it department: "The American Conservative Union
asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the
group's support in a bitter legislative dispute, then the group's
chairman flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay."

So went one of those "stranger than fiction" accounts — this
one appearing last week on Politico.com, which went on to allege the
existence of a formal letter from the ACU offering to produce "op-eds
and articles" supporting FedEx's position in opposition to its truck
routes coming under regulations of the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB). The company's airline routes are not under NLRB authority.

For more than a year, FedEx has been fighting congressional action
to make the change in supervision and has been locked in a lobbying
struggle over the issue with rival UPS.

After FedEx spurned the ACU overtures of support — which
Politico called evidence of the "pay to play" syndrome — ACU
officials made statements seeming to support UPS' side in the
controversy, prompting Maury Lane, FedEx's director of corporate
communications, to say, "Clearly, the ACU shopped their beliefs, and
UPS bought."

Not so, countered Dennis E. Whitefield, executive vice
president of ACU. In a statement this week, Whitefield said Politico's
account was erroneous, that his organization made no promises of
support in return for financial contributions, and said further: "ACU
does not support moving businesses under the jurisdiction of the NLRB
or expanding the federal government's power, reach, or authority under
the NLRB. ... ACU stands with the policy that FedEx should not be
placed under the NLRB."

The issue of FedEx jurisdiction over FedEx operations is one which
saw 9th District congressman Steve Cohen part with the
Democratic leadership in debate last year. Cohen made statements in
support of the FedEx position.

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